This is an elegant Chardonnay with a medium-full body and characteristics of stone-fruit and malo-lactic fermentation. The nose offers rock-melon and peach notes with a touch of oaky vanilla. The palate is juicy and ripe, with a creamy texture and a good dose of acidity.

Kumeu River Hunting Hill Chardonnay is made from a vineyard that was first planted in 1982 and originally produces grapes that formed a significant part of the original Kumeu River Chardonnay blend. The Hunting Hill Vineyard overlooks Maté's Vineyard in Kumeu and replanted in 2000, since then producing such outstanding grapes that the winemaking Brajkovich family decided to produce a single vineyard wine from here. 

Hunting Hill has elevated acidity which lends this wine both a delicious vibrancy in its youth as well as great aging potential and longevity. It is fresh, piercingly zesty and full bodied with dry, savoury flavours and a long, tangy finish. 

One of New Zealand's greatest Chardonnays both for drinking now and for cellaring for the long term. 

Kumeu River Wines began life as San Marino Wines in 1944 when Croatian immigrant couple, Mick and Katé Brajkovich, bought a small property with a vineyard on it. Their descendents now own and run Kumeu River Wines, which produces 250,000 bottles of wine annually from its owns 30 hectares of vineyards in Kumeu and from another 10 hectares, owned by local grape growers. 

Winemakers Notes:

Greystone is one of North Canterbury's wine stars situated on the slopes of limestone rich hills in Omihi. All of the grapes that go into Greystone wines are 100% certified organic with BioGro NZ and all are estate grown. No additional fruit is purchased to supplement production, which is one of many incremental steps that go into Greystone's high quality wines. 

This impressive Pinot Noir is the top of the Pinot tree at Greystone. It's made from fully destemmed whole berries which were cold macerated and fermented with wild yeasts, 25% of the wine having been fermented in small tanks amongst the vines, which ensures a completely wild vineyard yeast fermentation. The wine is bottled without fining, filtration or cold stabilisation.

It drinks well now but will reward those with patience to wait for it to develop further with age and has the potential to evolve positively for up to a decade, if kept in good conditions. 

Certified organic with BioGro NZ.

About Greystone

The Greystone wine story began in 2000 when the Thomas Family bought an old sheep farm on the Omihi hills in the Waipara Valley, North Canterbury. The rolling limestone hills lured this family in and their goal was a single minded one: to make great wines from the limestone rich soils here. Fast forward 20 years and Greystone is one of the great (and, some might say, yet to be fully discovered) wineries in this outstanding wine region. Not least due to the work of winemaker Dom Maxwell and general manager Nick Gill, who began working together in 2005 and has grown along with the brand and quality. 

Winery Notes:

An exotic nose of baking spices, pear, peach and cashew. This single block
Chardonnay naturally builds on the palate initially with ripe fruits,
beautifully restrained by fine-grained oak and integrated acidity. A long
flowing wine ready now, or age for up to ten years for increased complexity.

Note from our Viticulturist Mike Saunders :
Erin's Chardonnay grows on our steepest and highest slopes, in limestone soils which
impact a beautiful minerality and tension to the wine. The block is 100% Mendoza clone, its natural acidity is a perfect companion for the limestone soils. The small berries and thick skins from 2018 have created a wine with concentration and fine phenolics which add to the structure of the wine. Variation between the top and bottom of the slope adds layers of different flavours to the fruit and texture of the resulting wine. Extensive leaf plucking and bunch thinning ensured balanced crop loads and even ripening.

Note from our Winemaker Dom Maxwell :
We hand picked our steepest block of Mendoza Chardonnay before a gentle whole-bunch pressing to tank without additions. We allowed the juice to settle overnight before we racked to French oak barrels for wild fermentation and full malo-lactic fermentation. The extended nature of fermentation brings not only richness to the wine but also layers and complexity. Barrel ageing lasts 15 months before the wine was estate bottled without fining

The jewel in the Esk Valley crown, made from one of this country's most distinctive plots of land at Bayview, north of Napier, at the original Esk Valley Winery.

The Terraces has long been associated with excellence and the best wines from Esk Valley Estate's iconic sun drenched hillside terrace vineyard - the first place that Malbec was ever grown in New Zealand.

The philosophy behind this wine is to express the single vineyard Since its inaugural 1991 vintage, only 13 vintages have been produced and, for the first time in its history, this is the winery's third consecutive vintage. Which is testament to winemaker Gordon Russell's quest to make the best and to the winery's ongoing conversion to organic production. 

The wine is a blend of Malbec, Merlot and Cabernet Franc. All grapes were dry farmed, hand harvested and co fermented in one concrete fermenter with wild yeasts. The wine was bottled without fining or filtration. 

This wine represents the pinnacle of Esk Valley wines and is considered the jewel in the winery's crown. It is a keeper for the wine cellar and also makes a special gift. 

Château Rieussec’s Carmes de Rieussec is a Semillon dominant sweet wine from the Sauternais region of Graves, Bordeaux. The nose is jammy and complex with charming  marmalade notes. The palate is powerful and balanced, with great acidity complimenting notes of pineapple, honey and delicate spice. An excellent desert wine.

100% ovum, first use. Skeetfield fruit, unfined and unfiltered. Beautiful nose with subtly mealy citrus fruit. The palate has beautiful texture and finesse. There’s a bright, lively citrus core with fine-grained structure. Such precision and detail with some spicy, mealy richness. There’s amazing intensity and balance here. There are layers of flavour, with lemons, saline notes, and some grapefruit notes. This is profound. Tony Bish says egg Chardonnays don’t need to age as long before release, and may not live as long as barrique aged ones, but can deliver profundity.

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Church Road 1 is a range of single vineyard wines that showcase the terroir of our best vineyards. The Gimblett Gravels Winegrowing District consistently makes our most characterful red wines, with its warm, stony soils producing low yield crops of intensely flavoured fruit with a full-bodied, rich yet vibrant flavour. Sheltered from sea breezes and brisk southerly winds, this is one of the warmest subregions in Hawke’s Bay, making it ideally suited to producing bold red wines. This vineyard produces dense, characterful Malbec with a core of dark fruit and a fine-grained tannin structure that brings length and drive to the palate.

AROMAS
A robust and characterful Malbec with generous, juicy, dark berry fruit and lifted violet floral notes complemented by subtle oak that imparts notes of cedar, cacao and warm spice.
BODY
The palate is full-bodied with exceptional mid-palate richness. This opulence is balanced with voluminous, fine-grained tannins that bring definition and length to the wine.